Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Froomkin and the Storm in the Teacup



Do you read Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing"? I do. It seems that I should have felt confused about the real nature of Froomkin's column, that I should have thought he might have been Washington Post's real White House reporter. Because people who read the Washington Post get confused very easily, it seems, and the real reporters at the Post are worried about Froomkin's column being so very opiniated and liberal. So now the Post is thinking that they might change the name of the column and add a right-wing blog to "balance" Froomkin. Then Froomkin can write something called "What's Wrong With the Government" and the right-wing blog can be "Bush is Perfect". Balance in the 21st century American journalism...

Though I like this idea of making all pundits have Siamese twins of the opposite political persuasion. Who should we link with Ann Coulter? Or with George Will? Or with Laura Ingraham? Hey, I spot something very odd here. We are not looking to twin any wingnuts, after all, just those ornery truthtelling liberals. Because Americans don't understand the media and must have everything spelled out to them in great detail, though only when the media voice is a liberal one. It reminds me of George Bush telling us, over and over, the same thing, in a louder and louder voice, because he is convinced that we will accept his beliefs as the truth if only he keeps at it.

Poor Froomkin. He is one of the victims of the new political correctness which is really just the only political correctness that ever worked: those in political power call the shots.